"However, notwithstanding some significant theoretical differences,
these feminist critiques concur in seeing the feminine as being produced through
its effacement within the masculine discursive or symbolic order. In the words of
Derrida, ‘there is no such thing as a woman’ (1979, quoted in Feder and Zakin,
1997: 46), woman seems to be the ‘no-thing beyond the text’, a nothingness that
has no place in reality (Cornell, 1991).
[..]
gender identity is performed (and thus has no ‘essence’) through inscriptions on the
body; what I am suggesting in the following discussion is that these inscriptions
do their work of gendering by inflicting pain."

//VALÉRIE FOURNIER, Fleshing out Gender: Crafting Gender Identity on Women’s Bodies